A Redefined Alliance With South Korea as Necessary as Ever

I can’t resist returning to the Weekly Standard piece I linked here to quote one very interesting passage for special mention.  After calling for a strengthening of our military alliance with Japan, it says:

Second, we should redefine our alliance with South Korea. The North’s primary threat to the South is its arsenal of hundreds of artillery systems that could devastate Seoul. Rather than a U.S. presence that still includes ground forces, the primary focus of our military cooperation with Seoul should be on counter-battery systems that could neutralize this threat in the first minutes of a conflict. We should also release Seoul from some of its bilateral commitments to us, allowing it to develop and purchase more advanced weapons systems including missiles and UAVs.  [Jamie Fly, Carline Leddy, and Christian Whiton in the Weekly Standard]

I would like to see much more of this kind of discussion — in particular, the replacement of American bodies with American technology manned by South Koreans.

South Korea’s recent change of government — however long that lasts — wasn’t a referendum on the USFK or Kim Jong Il, and it didn’t alter South Korea’s fundamental long-term unreliability as an ally, the political liability we incur by keeping so many troops there, or the dangerous exposure of our military position there.  The force structure of USFK is an anachronism that is unsuited to the current North Korean threat and which is impeding South Korea’s arrival at a mature, self-sufficient approach to its own national security and nationhood.